Designer weasel Dominique de Villepin is profiled in today’s New York Times. As a picture of arrogance, incompetence and intellectual pretension it is hard to beat, but the following extract made truly remarkable reading:

“Describing Napoleon’s philosophy as “Victory or death, but glory whatever happens,” Mr. De Villepin added, “There is not a day that goes by without me feeling the imperious need to remember so as not to yield in the face of indifference, laughter or gibes” in order to “advance further in the name of a French ambition.”